The NBA’s ratings discourse this season has arguably generated more headlines than the actual play on the court.
That’s a bit of hyperbole, but the sentiment is true. This year, more than usual, the NBA’s “declining” ratings sparked a disproportionate amount of discussion.
At first, it was at least somewhat warranted. The league found its viewership down about 20% earlier this season, but turned it around thanks to a strong Christmas Day and some late-season storylines that garnered attention.
All told, the league finished the season down just 2% in the viewership department versus last year (or 5% if you count games that aired on NBA TV). That’s pretty insignificant in today’s day and age, when overall viewing on traditional television is declining at a much faster rate than that on account of cord-cutting.
The NBA’s regular season viewership decline was in line with that of the NFL, which also experienced a 2% slip during its regular season last year, and outpaced college basketball, which saw a 7% downturn for its regular season.
Suffice it to say, these are far from numbers that should incite the type of panic seen from many earlier on this season, especially in the context of the league’s brand new set of media rights deals that will rake in $76 billion over the next 11 years starting this fall.
So on Thursday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver did what every sports figure should do if they want to spin a narrative: he appeared on The Pat McAfee Show. And during his appearance, the commissioner set the record straight on NBA ratings.
“Remember the narrative earlier in the season was that the ratings were down and, in fact, they were down,” Silver began. “There was a competitive World Series, a presidential election. There were a bunch of factors I think that led to our ratings being down early on. But in order to end up down 2%, or relatively flat for the season, which is a victory these days, especially with declining television viewership from traditional television, that’s a victory.
“And the reason that happened is, just as you said, essentially post-All-Star the ratings picked up a lot. In fact, to end up just down 2% for the season from where we came from, the ratings had to be up significantly. And I think you saw tremendous competition around the league. Teams playing for playoff seeding, teams playing to get into the playoffs, healthy stars, a trade that attracted a lot of attention, a bunch of things happened in the league, and that generated a lot of interest.”
Silver is, for the most part, bang on the money here. Per Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, NBA viewership post-trade deadline increased by 16% versus viewership pre-deadline. That would, of course, coincide with the bombshell Luka Dončić trade.
There was also more competition for eyeballs this fall with the election and a high-octane World Series.
But a couple factors that worked in the NBA’s favor shouldn’t be overlooked. For one, the league had five Christmas Day games air on broadcast television versus just two last year; a reality that almost single-handedly erased the league’s early-season slump but was only possible because ABC wasn’t airing an NFL game like it did in 2023.
Second, the trade deadline also coincided with Nielsen’s expansion of out-of-home viewing measurements, which has lifted up all sports properties when it comes to viewership.
So, yes. The NBA is fighting the very real headwinds of declining television consumption. And its ratings slump was mostly on-par with its peers. But preventing an even bigger slip next year will be difficult. They’ll be competing head-to-head with a third NFL game on Christmas Day (this season, there were only two). And they won’t have the benefit of a weak Christmas slate from the prior year to compare to.
But next year will be an entirely different ballgame anyway, with TNT out and NBC and Amazon in. That alone will make any viewership comparisons difficult to make and even harder to predict.